Thursday, May 06, 2010

It happened again. And this time in Coronation Street, which as you have probably read in previous posts has a story going on in Brontë country... and well, as you can see in the picture on the right the Haworth misspelling disease has sprung up once again. It happened on last Sunday's episode (Season 51, Episode 89, May 2).The blunder has been acknowledged and ITV has already apologised. From Keighley News (or Digital Spy, Waveguide...):

ITV has apologised after a Haworth sign used in top soap Coronation Street was misspelt.A shot in Sunday evening’s episode showed a direction sign to “Howarth”.The scene was as Norris Cole tried to make his escape from an increasingly unstable Mary Taylor. The pair had been sharing a cottage, supposedly in Brontë Country.An ITV spokesman said: “We can only apologise for the error but we would hope the fact that the area was depicted and talked about in such a positive light would more than make up for this small mistake.”The company also admitted that although it had looked at possible filming locations in Brontë Country, the shooting was eventually done nearer the Manchester production base.This week, although there was disappointment at the misspelling of Haworth, many felt that the benefits of the publicity for the area outweighed the downside.Matt Stroh, chairman of tourism marketing body the Brontë Country Partnership, said: “It is sad that Haworth was misspelt but we can’t be anything but grateful for the coverage the area has received.“The filming location decision is interesting because one of the issues we have is convincing people that we are not that far from Manchester.”

Not the only TV series with a Brontë reference. The upcoming episode of Gossip Girl (3.21 'Ex-Husbands and Wifes') mentions Wuthering Heights according to Buddy TV:

Serena (Blake Lively) helps Blair (Leighton Meester) pick out an outfit for a first date with someone, and we are shocked to discover that Blair has read Wuthering Heights! (Glenn Diaz)

“Festival of the Immortals” sees two old women standing in a queue for a literary event. They note how their own history – once they drew stocking seams with eyebrow pencils – is absent from the books they have read: “There’s only Mrs Ramsey, and she’s hardly typical”. The conceit about the Immortals (dead writers reified as celebrities) is nicely sustained: “Look, that must be Charlotte Brontë in her bonnet . . . . I was right! She is short”. But it is in the women’s acute observations about literature, its pleasures, oversights (“hardly typical”) and relation to life (“I can’t be read like a book. I’m not dead yet . . . . Things might change”) that we see how fine a writer Simpson has become. (Kate Webb)

What are some of your favorite books or even one that you’ve enjoyed recently?For some reason, I’ve been in a Graham Green sort of mood. So, I went back and read The End of the Affair again, and I’m going to try to tackle, once again, The Power and the Glory, although I haven’t yet managed to get all the way through. I love Jane Eyre. I love Anna Karenina. I just finished Women in Love again. I tend to read the older classics more than the modern stuff. (Frank DiGiacomo)

My parents did not read much fiction, yet I was drawn to novels from the beginning. Jane Eyre. The Secret Garden. Dracula. I thought, for a very long time, that all great fiction was set in 19th century England. I also hoped I would live in a castle when I grew up. Wyoming is not quite a castle.

The Telegraph gives advises to parents with children doing exams. The final piece of advice sounds a little bit sinister:

And if you can't get away, just pretend, like Mr Rochester in Jane Eyre, that the poor unfortunate upstairs isn't really there. (Marianne Kavanagh)

The Herald talks with short film director Scott Graham who will present his latest short film, Native Son, in the upcoming Cannes Film Festival. He says:

I think that I personally quite like bleak, I quite like that sort of Wuthering Heights world and those landscapes. But I’m also trying to instil in them a heart, or just some humanity that people can recognise and feel some kind of connection with. (Teddy Jamieson)

Wuthering Heights is a completely new take on established material. With Andrea [Arnold], this has the potential to open that story to a whole new audience. That’s a really exciting prospect. (Wendy Mitchell)

Everyone loves this song, it's absolutely crazy but so haunting at the same time. Join in the group if you like the song or if you intend to join us in downloading it between the 26th and the 31st of July 2010 to get it back into the charts in time for Kate Bush's birthday. (Chris)

I think this can be the problem with these "reading challenges". People end up reading books they wouldn't ordinarily choose to read and don't enjoy them (although I spose the idea is there's a chance they *might* enjoy them). I think with Wuthering Heights you need to be in the right frame of mind. Otherwise it'll just seem bizarre. "what's up with the moors?" If you can't grasp that then you can't really grasp the novel, I would suggest.

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Villette is one blaze, one broad illumination; the whole world seems abroad; moonlight and heaven are banished: the town, by her own flambeaux, beholds her own splendour—gay dresses, grand equipages, fine horses and gallant riders throng the bright streets. I see even scores of masks. It is a strange scene, stranger than dreams.
~ Villette (ch. XXXVIII) by Charlotte Brontë